Change Your Image
VetteRanger
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try again
Hallmark Christmas Movies we can watch every year
Reviews
Five Gold Rings (2024)
Somewhat watchable, but not a tragedy if you miss it
This is one of the occasional "hunt' movies they do for these Christmas movies. A recently deceased grandmother had a habit of finding and returning lost personal treasures before Christmas each year, and leaves five ring shaped keepsakes for her granddaughter to continue the tradition.
The stories of finding the owners and returning the rings are NOT compelling. None have any tension or real mystery involved, and are rather boring.
Holland Roden's voice is annoyingly scratchy for most of her lines, which I typically assign to nervous delivery. They should have been dubbed over in post, because she sounds terrible.
Nolan Funk is okay, but does nothing to liven up his role. His expression and delivery is continaully bland.
The romance seems to have been limited to one slip where he caught her on a sidewalk.
There is overacting for some of the secondary roles. The rival antiques dealer is supposed to be annoying, but her scenery chewing for her couple of scenes makes it moreso.
Then there was the grandmother, in two scenes at the beginning of the movie. She was so over the top sickly sweet annoying I told my wife I hoped this was one of the stories where they skip ahead and the little girl at the beginning has grown up.
Indeed that's where the story went, and I REALLY hoped the grandmother was dead. This is the first time in more than a decade of watching Hallmark Christmas films I found myself glad that a character died. Glad, relieved, and joyful.
Finally, the "relationship crisis" at the end was possibly the most stupid I've ever seen in one of these movies. Utterly unbelievable the woman would have acted that way.
Like I said, it's no tragedy if you completely skip this one.
Christmas Next Door (2017)
Fun and a bit different
Here we get an antithetical romance between Jesse Metcalfe--who we first saw and came to like in the Dallas sequel-- and Fiona Gubelmann.
Jesse plays a successful author of lifestyle books for single men, and he lives his lifestyles, adding authenticity to his work. He's also not a big "holiday guy".
He gets saddled with his niece and nephew leading up to Christmas, and is a real fish out of water in handling kids. His neighbor (Fiona) helps out even though she and Jesse don't get along that well.
A funny bit throughout the movie is someone continually placing Christmas decorations in his yard, and his frustration when he gets rid of them and they reappear.
It's well worth a watch, and we've seen it more than once.
Holiday Mismatch (2024)
Hard to watch at times, but it has its moments
Here we have another of the myriad fake dating stories, but with a twist. This time two mothers have enrolled their son, and daughter, in a dating app and after the match they meet for a get to know each other meeting neither believes will last long. However, they decide to play along just to keep their mothers from trying again before Christmas.
Meanwhile, by coincidence, the mothers work together on Chamber of Commerce Christmas events and thoroughly dislike each other. So when they find out their kids were the matches, they're sure it can never work out.
The males and female lead are fine. The other two people working on the Chamber of Commerce committee are terrible. They're supposed to be funny, but instead are embarrassing to watch. Also, the big "relationship crisis" is no well written, and thus overplayed. And for the what they made it into, the reconciliation is too easy. Not well done.
The mothers used to play 600 year old witches, sisters, on Sabrina the teenage witch for eight years, so for fans of that show (which we never watched), I'm sure they'll enjoy the reunion.
It's worth a watch, but we won't be revisiting it.
Come Dance with Me (2012)
Relatively calm and sweet
Christmas Dance (or Come Dance With Me) came along before the mass proliferation of "big company buys up blocks to destroy forcing out long-term small family business". So watching it now it looks like the same old tired story, but when it came out it was a relatively new trope.
It also came out when Hallmark was routinely using some bigger name actors in these movies, and Andrew McCarthy does a fine job as a rising businessman who finds himself suddenly in the midst of a moral dilemma.
What starts out as dance classes in the block he's financing the deal to tear down turns into a sweet budding romance and a hidden identity story. The conflict of love versus money never looks like a real conflict, but you'll enjoy the movie anyway. We're up for repeating viewings, but with a few years in between.
A Carol for Two (2024)
A nice story (and some nice singing) flawed
The story of aspiring singers hoping for Broadway roles isn't that inventive, but the male and female leads are attractive and nice in their roles. Separately, their singing is very fine, and it was nice to hear some real Christmas carols with religious overtones, since Christmas is ... as often seems to be forgotten in these films ... a religious holiday.
Unfortunately, in their duets, the leads can't seem to find just one key to agree on. Their duet on "The Christmas Song" was downright painful in places. Ginna Mason could never find the key Jordan Litz played and sang, and they both hit a couple of clangers along the way. Hard to believe they couldn't tell that and correct it in post, at least.
However, the BIG problem with this film is Gino Anania, the second male lead. His part was poorly written, making the character a annoyance with every appearance. And Gino overplayed the role to make it double or triple as annoying as it might otherwise have been, making me tempted to just bag this thing a few times. I'm not sure why, but we managed to stick it out, wasting two hours of our lives.
Our Holiday Story (2024)
Inventive and wonderful
Every year there are dozens of cookie cutter cable Christmas movies. Some are okay and some are rehashed cliches. The movie broke all the cookie cutters and sent cliches off to die. Love it.
We get a story of one romance inside the story of the "current day" romance. However, the "romance inside the romance" is the REAL story, and the story with all the depth.
Two people keep meeting and circumstances keep them from ever closing the deal on exactly who each other is.
However, it turns out that the man is organizing a Christmas festival, and the woman determines the budget for the festival and they communicate only remotely about the festival, but are always at odds. But when they meet in person, their relationship is magic.
The story is funny and moving, both, and the suspense about when they'll both know the truth carries the movie. Another plus, the acting is spot on.
Highly recommended.
One Royal Holiday (2020)
Very watchable
A queen and her son get stranded at a small inn/B&B by a snow storm which closes down the local airports, and in the beginning try to stay incognito. However, the secret gets out.
Unlike some of the other "Prince likes commoner" movies where a queen doesn't approve, this queen is very personable and approchable, and to me the most likeable character in the film.
The story does a nice job of putting the romantic leads together enough to give the feeling they cold build a relationship, and that element is missing in too many of these films.
This isn't an every year watch for us, but it's imminently watchable, and I can recommned it for at least one viewing.
My Sweet Austrian Holiday (2024)
Terrible accents
This is really a very slow-moving story. After a half-hour they'd done nothing I was interested in. My wife wanted to hang on a little longer, but after another ten minutes she decided to pull the plug on this one.
This is another of the extremely tired "losing business to new development" trope, and it really makes no sense here. I had no interest in the character of the male lead, and very little in the character of the female lead. Really, no tension and no interesting relationship building. Dialogue less interesting than my neighbors gossiping over a fence.
Added to this were very annoying affected British accents ... in Austria? Why? The Canadian actors were the worst, but the Englishman in the lead tried to affect an upper-crust accent that doesn't belong to him. I had to look him up to even convince myself he's actually English.
Not recommended.
Christmas Getaway (2017)
Warm Story
First, it's a great looking set of leads, which isn't always the case in more recent Hallmark romances, Christmas or otherwise. Travis van Winkle is a big, good-looking guy, and Bridget Regan is beautiful, as always, in this film.
The "accidentally double booked" trope has been around, but it's not as overworked a many of the other cookie cutter plots we often see in these movies, and the crisis here is managed with some outrage but, in the end, sensible adult logic.
Of course, during the course of the story, you have warm relationship building, misunderstandings, and the inveitable crisis to be solved as the romance suddenly looks broken beyond repair.
They never are broken beyond repair. The last seven minutes always takes care of that. ;-)
Definitely worth the watch.
The Christmas Train (2017)
Love this movie
With anywhere from 30 to 45 Hallmark Christmas movies produced every year, we have to bear up with a host of cookie cutter plots every year, and unfortunately you don't know which films are the winners and which the losers until you watch them. Sometimes a film which starts out badly gains steam before the end.
This movie broke all the cookie cutters and had my interest right away. Of course, it started with a far above average cast, and that gave it an immediate edge.
Over the couse of a cross-country train trip, we meet a cast of interesting characters and get involved in all of their lives, but especially we become involved in the possibility of rekindling the failed romance between the leads, Kimberly Williams and Dermot Mulroney.
This harks back to the days when Hallmark didn't do many films, but every one had name stars and well thought out stories. Just watch it.
Charming Christmas (2015)
Julie Benz looks great in her Mrs. Santa suit. :-)
And my title is only one of the good reasons to watch this movie. David Sutcliffe, who plays a guy who "might" be Santa Claus, gives a warm performance as the confidant and confidence building hire to be a major downtown department store Santa.
Meredith (Julie Benz) takes a dislike to him from the start, but winds up accepting a challenge to play the Mrs. Santa for the season.
During the course of the film, both she and Nick wind up having a warm and caring influence on store employees, and helping Meredith grow into someone who comes to regard her friends and employees as more important than financial expansion.
Well worth the watch.
Christmas in Montana (2019)
Colin Ferguson wins again
Colin Ferguson has appeared in three Hallmark Christmas movies. We've liked him since his run in Eureka, so he's always a welcome presence on the screen, and brings the same sense of warmth he did during that TV series. Unfortunately, he hasn't appeared in another Hallmark movie since this one, five years ago as I write.
Here, he is a ranch owner in financial straits, Kellie Martin is an advisor sent to help him get things together so her bank doesn't foreclose. However, the things he needs to do, like sell land to raise cash or cut back on expenses, don't mesh with his sense of holding what he's got and somehow making it work.
The relationshp building between the leads is superior to most of these movies, and believable to my wife and me.
Of course, Kellie's character comes up with a plan to save everything. Just believe it would work. None of these writers actually know a damned thing about business, or they'd be out making successful business deals instead of writing mid-range made for TV movies. :-)
Operation Nutcracker (2024)
Definitely a trope breaker
I very much enjoyed this movie's premise, and it included virtually none of the common tropes in these films. No one claimed to be someone they weren't. No one tried to redevelop a small town. No one had to choose between a job in the city or love in a small town. I mean, these writers actually found something different to do, and that "something" was interesting.
Here, a valuable heirloom "nutcracker" get lost in a luggage swap mishap at the airport when one luggage tag comes off by accident. That leads our male and female main characters to begin a search to find the lost bag. In the meantime, they have the bag of a father who was bringing home an impossible to find (sold out everywhere) doll to his daughter.
The search makes sense, and interesting and funny things happen on the way.
I'd have given this 9 stars, but a smaltzy and ridiculous deal added to the ending broke all sense of belief. It wasn't needed and just turned into an eyeroller piece of business.
However, despite that, this is a recommended watch.
All I Want for Christmas (2007)
The beautiful Gail O'Grady
Forget that she was the murderer on the 2-hour Monk pilot, Gail O'Grady is a beautiful woman and a fine actress, and that's a good reason to watch this movie all by itself.
Here, she's a widow ignoring a possible return to romance while she works at a community center and raises her (now) ten year old son.
She's told right at the beginning that her across-the-hall neighbor has a thing for her, and he already has a great relationship with the son.
Her son enters a contest with the movie's title, and of course he wins, with the wish that his mother find love and get a husband.
The story after that is full of indecisiveness and mixed signals, but it's a nice story and worth a watch.
A Timeless Christmas (2020)
A charming fantasy
Let me tell you folks, time flies when you get older. LOL As I write this review in 2024, it doesn't seem like four years since we saw the ads for this film and then watched it. NOT AT ALL.
Okay, on to the movie. We get a story which is somewhat the reverse of the well-regared and well-remember Time After Time with Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour. In this case, the man comes FORWARD in time when a magic clock sends him to find true love, which is evidently NOT his fiancé in 1903.
The typical fish out of water develops as he becomes the lead player in a daily show about his own life, where his mansion has become a museum, and of course begins to fall for the museum curator. His reactions as he learns about the aftermath of his mysterious disappearance makes this interesting, and Erin Cahill, beautiful in the role, does a nice job of acting, too.
Recommended for repeat viewings.
The 5-Year Christmas Party (2024)
Clever, but frustrating
This movie has a different approach than most Hallmark Christmas movie fare, and that alone makes it work a look, as it touches on the shaky relationship between two people who basicly only see either other once a year around Christmastime for a series of years.
The script writers went for sharp, smart dialogue and uncomfortable scenes, and they got that right.
Unfortunately, they created two characters with believable sexual tension, but, to me, unlikeable. The female lead in particular seems far too willing to ignore friends, as she ghosts two of them over the course of the movie, and eventually he ghosts her too, after going to California to make a movie. These are not people I'd make part of my life.
I'm not sorry we watched it, but it won't bear a second time through.
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (2008)
Bad boyfriend, new man complication
It's a common trope in these Hallmark Christmas movies. A woman has a self-centerted/self-important boyfriend and meets a brand new intriguing guy during the holiday season. Will his charm and good behavior throw over the current boyfriend? You know the answer to that one! LOL
However, this movie has Henry Winkler, and he steals the show, being a much more high calibre actor that the run of the mill talent in most of these movies. He's come for the annual holiday visit to his niece and her son (lots of nieces in these movies!), and drags along a fellow traveler who has no place to stay for a night. That time period stretches out, and a wonderful, funny movie results.
Obviously, recommended.
A Princess for Christmas (2011)
One of our first
We discovered Hallmark Christmas movies either the year this came out or the next year. I can't pin it down. However, this is the movie that got us hooked, and it hits all the right emotional spots.
A young woman is responsible for her orphaned niece and nephew, and loses her job and her nanny/housekeeper before Christmas. However, it turns out the kids are the grandchildren of a rich noble in one of the dozens of small European countries where everyone speaks with an English accents. I know the number, because a new one (at least one) pops up every year in these Christmas movies. This may be the movie that started the trend.
They accept an invitation to spend Christmas with the kids' grandfather, played by Roger Moore. A charming and funny fish out of water story develops, with a heart-warming ending.
Unfortunately, Katie McGrath got eaten by a dinosaur in Jurassic World, so no sequel. ;-)
Recommended.
The Christmas Secret (2014)
Coincidence, anyone?
Okay, mostly I think plots with lots of coincidences are nothing other than lazy plotting, and this film is full of coincidence. However, here, they work.
A struggling single mother loses her job saving a life and is about to lose her rented home. She has moved back to the small town her family came from, and so not all of the coincidences are that far fetched, as the ties would be there.
The man who tries to find the mysterious woman who saved the life has a frustrating quest, staying one step behind and the mistaking who she is when they finally do meet. Her toxic ex-husband complicates things.
The story is heart-warming and ultimately fulfilling. Don't miss it.
I'm Not Ready for Christmas (2015)
Liar, Liar?
In this riff on a famous Jim Carrey film, Alicia is victimized where her niece makes a wish to Santa that Alicia can't lie anymore, and that's needed. Alicia lies consistently about anything for her convenience, and isn't smart about it. She gets caught in them ... a lot.
The predicted sequence of embarrassing truths begins, and despite her desire to continue her old ways, Alicia can't stop 'truthing'. Of course, a romance starts, and the combination of her old lies and her new truths complicates the budding relationship, to the point of her love interest rejecting her.
We like Alicia Witt in most of her movies, and this is no exception.
Fallen Angel (2003)
Full of Heart
On the theme of "you can't go home again", Fallen Angel takes both sides of the question. Gary Sinese plays a son with a troubled relationship with a hard-working father who disappeared into his work after the death of his wife.
The son left town for college and a successful career in business law, then gets the call he didn't expect because he just didn't think about his. His after is in the hospital and not expected to make it.
The other side of the story is a man who married into a wealthy family and was involved in a snowy car accident, not his fault, but a mother and daughter were killed. He disappeared.
As Gary Sinese works to handle his father's affairs, the daughter of that man decides to return to the house his father worked as caretaker, and he decides to reopen the house as a last fanfare to his father.
The result is a charming, heartwarming, and at time bittersweet movie you'll never forget, and want to watch again and again.
The Christmas Charade (2024)
Broke the mold ... fun movie :-)
The one thing I don't forward to in these Christmas movies are the same warmed-over tropes offered again and again by writers with no imagination.
The Christmas Charade broke the mold, even if it did offer a toned-down version of the "fake boyfriend trope". That element didn't dominate the story, and that made it easy to forgive.
Cory Seiver is one of the actors in these movies who can play different roles with different personalities. Not all of the actors have that talent. Here his serious FBI agent is full of engaging and amusing moments.
Rachel Skarsten does a great job as a quirkly librarian hooked on adventure romance movies. When they meet accidentally and insert her into his case, the dialogue and situations provoked some laugh out loud moments, which we find rare in these movies, but appreciate when they show up.
The story is funny and engaging, and actually manages to touch on Christmas in a more solid way than a lot of these movies do.
A Vintage Christmas (2024)
Didn't do enough new for the trope
Here we have another "big city developer comes to the small down to knock something down to build something new" trope ... which happens in far too many of these Christmas movies.
This time, it's an old-fashioned post office building which is FAR too large for that town, and hasn't been used in decades. But the woman who runs the town's historical society wants to keep it, especially since her father was the Postmaster there for most of his career.
Christopher Russell and Merritt Petterson do a nice job with the antithetical romance, but that element gets dropped too soon, which is often the case in these cable movies ... this one happens to be GAF, not Hallmark.
The writers put them together over a batch of "found" Christmas letters to Santa, and the leads come together over making some of those childhood fantasies come true. However, the movie doesn't really make enough of that plot element, and develops no real angst at the end. Writers aren't even trying hard these days.
This Time Each Year (2024)
Bland
I hate not giving this movie more stars, because we very much like both Alison Sweeny and Niall Matter. Plus Laura Soltis always makes a beautiful mother of the female lead, and she does that VERY often. LOL
Here Lauren (Sweeney) and Kevin (Matter) are separated, but she hasn't told her mother? So when her mother comes for Christmas, she wants to hide that fact? In the real world, their young son is going to inadvertantly give up that secret in a very short span of the visit.
The movie was so bland that within a few days of viewing it, I already can't remember very many details about it. Nothing about it was offensive, but nothing was memorable, either. Sad.
'Twas the Date Before Christmas (2024)
Too many movies, too few tropes
There's nothing really wrong with this movie except unless you are BRAND NEW to watching Hallmark and GAF Christmas movies (and their other romances) you've seen the two main elements in this story at least a half dozen times already, and one of them DOZENS of times.
The female lead character needs a date to save her family's Christmas. Okay, that's a stretch, but lets go with it. So she arranges a blind date on an app, and somehow doesn't tell the guy her family will assume they've know each other longer than ... THAT MORNING.
So we've got the fake date trope. The story going along with it is okay. Of course the family loves him right away and he likes them so they all spend a nice Christmas Eve together with almost none of the "they don't really know each other" comedy drama that trope normally generates.
Then we've got the big developer takes over small business trope, and the various writers who come up with the stories seem to think half their scripts need to include this tired cliche. This part of the story falls VERY flat. Like, the writers didn't even try to introduce conflict there.
The developer will kick the FMC's sister-in-law out of her store, and somehow she'll never be able to find another retail space to lease. That's dumb. In this economy, unleased retail space is abundant.
But here's the thing: Once the developer finds out his "date" has a sister-in-law effected by his development, he's open to immediately changing his mind. No drama whatsoever. The family still likes him even before he tells them that.
The thing that kicked me out was when the developer called his office to stop an eviction notice from going out (and that's not the way this is handled, anyway--you don't evict tenants with paid up leases), he waits until after nightfall on Christmas Eve to tell someone not to send the letter?
How dumb can these writers be?
Pretty dumb, all the way around.
If you watch this movie, it's okay ... if you disengage your brain. Just don't think to hard. The writers certainly didn't bother.